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I seem to remember us having a debate on this topic on the Vine a year or two ago. (I would look it up but I'm too lazy at this time of night !
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Tyres not only have heavy metals such as cadmium in them, they have a witches brew of pollutants like plasticisers, endocrine disrupters etc. This is why they are treated as one step down from toxic waste, and there is now lots of paperwork involved in disposing or transferring ownership of them. Frankly, if they were not vital to everyday life, I get the feeling they would have been banned by now.
It is because tiny microscopic particles of tyre materiel wear off onto the road surface and are flushed into waterways with the onset of rain, causing a sudden surge in pollution, that roadside drains nowadays are stone soakaways rather than being the old fashioned ditches; ditches create a much more rapid surge in runoff, and therefore pollutants.
Shame really. Maybe painting them all over gets round any problems of leaching - but then you have the paint...
Of course there is an alternative explanation for why they are banned on allotments. They leave the soil tired...
)Tyres not only have heavy metals such as cadmium in them, they have a witches brew of pollutants like plasticisers, endocrine disrupters etc. This is why they are treated as one step down from toxic waste, and there is now lots of paperwork involved in disposing or transferring ownership of them. Frankly, if they were not vital to everyday life, I get the feeling they would have been banned by now.
It is because tiny microscopic particles of tyre materiel wear off onto the road surface and are flushed into waterways with the onset of rain, causing a sudden surge in pollution, that roadside drains nowadays are stone soakaways rather than being the old fashioned ditches; ditches create a much more rapid surge in runoff, and therefore pollutants.
Shame really. Maybe painting them all over gets round any problems of leaching - but then you have the paint...
Of course there is an alternative explanation for why they are banned on allotments. They leave the soil tired...
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